We all dread the email that seems to come more often these days: 'Your account has been compromised'.

And we've all dealt with the emails trying to get details out of us.

Sadly, you've not won a free car, there isn't a deposed Prince looking to wire you millions of pounds, and no part of you can be enhanced with this 'miracle' technique.

Unfortunately these email scams are part and parcel of the internet. Some of them are harmless, and some of them are not.

Recently, researchers investigating spambots (automated scripts which send you unsolicited, sometimes malicious email) discovered one which contained 711 million email addresses. Based in the Netherlands, it was found have to sent spam annoyingly, but it also included harmful banking malware, according to the Manchester Evening News.

Troy Hunt, Microsoft regional director, hit home with how big it is in a tweet. He wrote: "Processing the largest list of data ever seen in @haveibeenpwned courtesy of a nasty spambot. I'm in there, you probably are too."

He references @haveibeenpwned - but there's no need to fear this account. It was created by Hunt and is a trusted anti-hacker website which stores the details of passwords which have been leaked.

All you have to do is enter your email address into the website and it will tell you if your account has been compromised in a data breach.

It will reveal where your account has been breached, and what kind of information could be in the wild.

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This new spambot researches discovered is called Onliner Spambot and is described on haveibeenpwned as "malicious software which contained a server-based component located on an IP address in the Netherlands which exposed a large number of files containing personal information. In total, there were 711 million unique email addresses, many of which were also accompanied by corresponding passwords."

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On his website, Tory wrote the list of addresses this spambot has is: "11m records which makes it the largest single set of data I've ever loaded into HIBP. Just for a sense of scale, that's almost one address for every single man, woman and child in all of Europe. This blog post explains everything I know about it."